C*ltc

[72barca 1,788]

3 hours ago, billscott said:

that could happen hearts will be up for this they have a very experienced team who will not be fazed by that mob  as a side issue hearts know who was responsible for them getting relegated

Yeah, but will the referees in this set-up allow Hearts to be enthusiastic?

[qwerty 3,730]

[qwerty 3,730]

.

[Sweetheart 8,458]

8 hours ago, demise said:

January is massive for us, as previously said. Winning 4 games in Jan would be fantastic, but id settle for winning 3, one of them being vs celt. Sooner or later we will drop points, but i fail to see how are they going to win 90% of their game til the end of the season to match us.

A bit of calculation from my part. We have 21 games left to play, while they have 23. We have 47 points. In order to get say 90 points, we have to win 14 and draw 1 out of our 21 games left. Meanwhile they have 34 pts and need to win 19 out of their 23 games(3 of them against us) til the end to get 91 points and go first. I know that nothing is won yet and theres a long way to go, but I just cant see them doing that. And if we take the 2 OF at Ibrox we should be just fine.

I was reading a thread on ff and they had a graph of where we started to dip in form last year and that we have now gone past that point without dipping, so it seems rotating the team was the solution to that problem.

https://www.followfollow.com/forum/threads/gerrards-3-seasons-in-graphs.144275/

[Junior Soprano 22,428]

3 hours ago, Colin Traive said:

Tom Irish has a decent article on BBC website now singing our praises and quoting loads of stats.

The one that caught my eye was this : we win every game up to and including January 2 at Ibrox, we will be a minimum of 19 clear which, in his eyes, is too much to claw back even with three games in hand.

They would need to win all their games in hand, then win every game after the OF while hoping that a team that will only have dropped four points in total to that stage will then drop ten points (eg 2 defeats plus 2 draws) in the remaining matches.

Never gonna happen.

I’ll stick my neck out and say that if we win every game up to and including the OF game, we’re virtually there.

You add the goal difference to that as well. You could say it’s 14 points ahead right now

[demise 3,519]

Thought id post the whole article by Tom English. 

 

Quote

In the last game of the 2017-18 season that Rangers played before Steven Gerrard took over as manager at Ibrox, they conceded five goals against Hibs in a 5-5 draw at Easter Road. That's one more than they have conceded in 17 league games this season.

The last six games they played pre-Gerrard saw them shipping those five against Hibs, another five against Celtic, another four against Celtic and one against Hearts and Aberdeen. They gave up 16 goals in six domestic games. This season they've given up 12 in 27 in all competitions.

There are many ways you can analyse their improvement under Gerrard, but to capture the scale of it takes a while. Their signings, their coaching, their entire focus as a club has changed for the better. Not that long ago Rangers were an institution addicted to issuing angry press statements about any slight - real or otherwise. Things are much quieter now.

The Dave King show around the selling of his shares and his bombast in the media that accompanied it can't be hung on the current decision-makers at Ibrox. They'd no idea what King was up to. There's not much communication with their old chairman these days. Save for King's solo run, the hubris and hubbub has gone.

James Tavernier played in the 5-5 draw with Hibs, but he's the only survivor from the 14 players who appeared that day. Players with no value have been culled. New players with considerable value added and improved. We can see the strides that Rangers have made by looking at the league table but also by considering the transfer value of some of their players.

It's not £200m, as King stated, but it's a world away from zero, the collective worth of many Rangers squads in the pre Gerrard era. On the pitch and off, they have made vast improvements. Improvements, frankly, that many couldn't see coming. A mea culpa here.

When Gerrard was appointed the feeling was that he would be chewed up by the pressure of the job. Celtic were rampant. They had all the financial advantages, all the off-field stability and on-field confidence. They had an experienced manager, Brendan Rodgers, who was now going up against a managerial rookie. In need of a heavyweight to put it up to Celtic, it looked like a gamble, not just for Rangers but for Gerrard himself. Why would anybody want to start his career as a manager by hurling himself into a seemingly impossible job?

It's taken a couple of seasons of pain, but what we're seeing now is solid progress. It needs a league trophy to validate that progress, of course. Caution is still advised on that front. The league season is far from over. The possibility of a Celtic comeback can't be discounted. For Celtic fans, the great hope is that their team is now finding itself again and that they are about to embark on a winning run that will test Rangers' mettle.

What happens if Celtic regain their old strength, win all around them for the rest of the year and then go to Ibrox and defeat the home team? What would this Rangers set-up be like if that kind of heat was applied? That's a lot of ifs. Rangers haven't given much, if any, evidence that they're going to weaken.

Sunday against Dundee United turned into a test - and they passed it. They got extremely lucky when Alfredo Morelos was given yellow instead of the red he clearly deserved, but it was another victory and another goal for Tavernier. The full-back now has 11 goals in the league. That's more than Celtic pair Mohamed Elyounoussi and Ryan Christie combined. He has 17 goals in all competitions. That's the same return as Odsonne Edouard, Albian Ajeti and Patryk Klimala combined.

It's difficult to recall when people first started speculating about Celtic going unbeaten in the league in Rodgers' first season as Celtic manager, but the probability is that there was chat around the turn of the year, if not earlier.

Rodgers' side had only dropped two points in the Premiership by mid-December of his first season. They'd put four on St Johnstone, Aberdeen, Ross County, Motherwell and Partick Thistle, they'd put five on Rangers and six on Kilmarnock. In Scottish terms, they were an outstanding side, lit up by Moussa Dembele, Scott Sinclair, Kieran Tierney and Stuart Armstrong.

Gerrard's team still have it all to do but they're powering on. Is it too early to talk about them going unbeaten for the entire league season? Probably. Surely somebody will catch them out on a given day, but we said that about Rodgers' boys, too.

Rangers' depth carrying them forward

Instead of comparing this Rangers side to their counterparts at Celtic, it's interesting to compare them to Rodgers' side at the same point in the season. After 17 league games, Rodgers' Celtic had two more points than Gerrard's Rangers. They'd scored 47 goals and Rangers have also scored 47 goals.

Here we see the depth of the Rangers squad, the division of danger that was once so heavily dependent on Morelos and Jermain Defoe. This time last season, those two had 22 league goals between them. Now they have just five. Others have stepped up. Joe Aribo and Scott Arfield have four, Ryan Kent has five, Kemar Roofe has six, Tavernier has a million, or maybe it just feels that way.

Rodgers' team conceded 13 in their first 17 league games of the invincible season whereas Rangers have only conceded four. With three league goals to his name Connor Goldson's personal goal difference is only -1.

In the first 17 games of the 2016-17 league season, Celtic trailed in only two matches for a total of 74 minutes. Rangers have been behind in just one and for only 23 minutes. This looks compelling. Gerrard's team is stacking up well against Rodgers' stellar side, but they need to finish it off. Unless they have a league trophy to show for it at the end then none of this matters.

The next month might decide the league. If Rangers beat Motherwell on Saturday they'll go 16 points clear at the top. They play St Johnstone, Hibs and St Mirren after that. Then, it's Celtic at Ibrox. If they win them all then the gap will be a minimum of 19 points. For all their games in hand, Celtic will have little realistic prospect of making up the ground at that point.

Just over a year ago, Rangers might have seen the finishing line and the legs went from under them like Devon Loch. They look a different animal this time. Gerrard's revolution is entering a deeply pivotal time.

 

[Junior Soprano 22,428]

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

[Getstiffed 8,863]

6 hours ago, Sweetheart said:

I was reading a thread on ff and they had a graph of where we started to dip in form last year and that we have now gone past that point without dipping, so it seems rotating the team was the solution to that problem.

https://www.followfollow.com/forum/threads/gerrards-3-seasons-in-graphs.144275/

Rotating the squad with the improved players that were already here and the quality added in the summer. He couldn't have rotated the same way last season.

[Colin Traive 22,876]

12 minutes ago, Junior Soprano said:

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

Psychologically, that would/will really screw them up. So many of them can’t remember a time when they weren’t winning everything. Even last year, they know who deserved to collect the trophy but we blew it.

The sight of a Rangers captain lifting a cup will destroy them. And it will be mentally huge for us too.

But we have to deal with St Mirren first. One game at a time. Boring as fuck I know but it’s a formula that works.

[Robmc1 4,741]

1 hour ago, Colin Traive said:

One game at a time. Boring as fuck I know but it’s a formula that works.

Yes mate can’t agree more, it’s an easy thing to do but we should only be focusing on one game to the next imo (which it appears SG and the squad are doing). Exciting times...

[Moody Blue Legend 61,610]

1 hour ago, Junior Soprano said:

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

Aye mate, the players will know we should have won it last season.  

[BlueKnight87 17,316]

2 hours ago, Junior Soprano said:

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

It will be massive. The only thing missing now from this sqaud is silverware. Once they get their first it will be a springboard to more success. 

It will also put the fear right into scum fc. 

[esquire8 43,002]

2 hours ago, Junior Soprano said:

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

Win the league cup and these players will only get hungry for more shiny things and go full berserker rage for the rest of the season. Which, at a key time in the season, will be crucial. 

[don logan 8,077]

2 hours ago, Junior Soprano said:

A also think the league cup is pivotal this year.

Totally agree. Should be our strongest 11 tomorrow - not some of the weaker teams being posted on the match thread.

[Swally 6,289]

5 minutes ago, esquire8 said:

Win the league cup and these players will only get hungry for more shiny things and go full berserker rage for the rest of the season. Which, at a key time in the season, will be crucial. 

it will also bolster our players confidence and perhaps push it up a level more

the opposite will happen if we don't get it, I agree with what's been said, it's pivotal 

[esquire8 43,002]

2 minutes ago, don logan said:

Totally agree. Should be our strongest 11 tomorrow - not some of the weaker teams being posted on the match thread.

After the performances of our backup players in recent games the drop off in standard is barely noticeable. Very confident whoever Gerrard picks will put in a shift and dispatch these fucks professionally.

[GersInCanada 7,775]

2 minutes ago, esquire8 said:

After the performances of our backup players in recent games the drop off in standard is barely noticeable. Very confident whoever Gerrard picks will put in a shift and dispatch these fucks professionally.

Exactly what I was about to post.

[esquire8 43,002]

Just now, GersInCanada said:

Exactly what I was about to post.

[magic8ball 27,901]

49 minutes ago, esquire8 said:

After the performances of our backup players in recent games the drop off in standard is barely noticeable. Very confident whoever Gerrard picks will put in a shift and dispatch these fucks professionally.

It seems to be the system rather than the individuals that’s working well for us this season .All seem to be on message on what is expected of them and what they are expected to do .
 

I don’t think there has been a time even when In the past when we had relatively large budgets could we go away in Europe and win .

I can remember back in the 90s we had squads full of top players but get schooled by teams like Famagusta who were far better set up .Always wanted us to be like that ,Now we are pretty close to that .

[King Jela 20,407]

4 hours ago, demise said:

Thought id post the whole article by Tom English. 

 

 

Good read. Some impressive stats amongst it. Can't see us going unbeaten but we've clearly got the better defence between us (now) and them (16/17) so hopefully that's a good omen. 

[RFCRobertson 11,789]

20 hours ago, demise said:

January is massive for us, as previously said. Winning 4 games in Jan would be fantastic, but id settle for winning 3, one of them being vs celt. Sooner or later we will drop points, but i fail to see how are they going to win 90% of their game til the end of the season to match us.

A bit of calculation from my part. We have 21 games left to play, while they have 23. We have 47 points. In order to get say 90 points, we have to win 14 and draw 1 out of our 21 games left. Meanwhile they have 34 pts and need to win 19 out of their 23 games(3 of them against us) til the end to get 91 points and go first. I know that nothing is won yet and theres a long way to go, but I just cant see them doing that. And if we take the 2 OF at Ibrox we should be just fine.

Fully agree, we will eventually drop points somewhere but right now there is a meaninful point difference between us and celtic (even without the games in hand) so there is a slight cushion. If we win the next old firm, which i firmly believe we will, its a hand on the cup. If we go January without a loss I think the league is firmly in our hands and ours to lose at that point.

[FlippinEck 3,708]

This isn't like bringing in Flanagan and Polster and Middleton. We have quality options now and confident in most players in our squad. That said, strongest xi possible please and fuck Goodwins mob. 

[Davy Vandenbroucke 26,204]

 

[eejay the dj 31,964]

4 hours ago, Bronzy said:

 

Just one reason .I hope we wipe the floor with St Mirren tonight .

[GersInCanada 7,775]

I must thank Mr Leckie for putting me straight.

We are the evil empire. Never knew that.

We have no good players and are just lucky. Never knew that.

The universe needs a hero to put us to the sword and it may be St Mirren.

 

How on earth does anyone get paid for writing such utter drivel ?